In David Foster Wallace “This Is Water” he is giving a commencement speech to the 2005 graduating class of Kenyon College. The expectation of a commencement speech is to congratulate the graduates and send them off to handle adult life. In this speech Wallace poses the idea of what is real and essential in your life. One word he intentionally repeats is “choose.” This word is placed throughout his speech making it significant. Whether optimistic or skeptic, you choose, and that is a powerful and freeing thing to know. It is clear Wallace chooses to see the good in the world and urges us to so as well, but he implies to the audience it is their “choice. 

Wallace argues for the audience to view the world with clear eyes and graceful hearts and to be intentional in our thinking.  In his first example, he talks of two young fish swimming without a purpose in water, and an older fish asking them “how is the water?” Wallace is inferring the water is life and that the older wiser fish is suggesting they choose to think about life instead of just swimming through it. Wallace begins to use contexts like the fish story to get us to think in a more meaningful way. We must train ourselves to think outside the self-centered behavior to which we have become accustomed.  His point is that the graduate has learned much, but now the real learning begins. Is having a choice of how to think too much for some people? Through Wallace’s speech we see that he believes it is a positive and freeing thing to have a choice. Wallace argues that when we are deliberate about the way we think, we are living a more meaningful life by choosing to care, choosing to think differently, and choosing to learn from our experiences and I agree with his argument. 

 Living and caring for others before ourselves is a choice and can be very rewarding. “The really important kind of freedom involves attention and awareness and discipline and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them over and over.” (XVI) Through this quote we see Wallace’s opinion of freedom of choice. He is telling us we have the freedom to care about others and when we choose this route it frees us and helps us to enjoy life. It frees us because when we choose to think of others it leaves us with a selfless, positive, and rewarding feeling. We see it is as positive through the diction used. The words “important,” “truly,” and “care” make us think positive thoughts. When we choose to be positive, things become more meaningful and significant.  Wallace is stretching the students to think even as they are leaving college and hoping they make a conscientious choice to live a life different from the majority of people that numbly think only of themselves.  

The second example Wallace gives us is dealing with problems in day to day life.  What would you do if a hummer cuts you off in traffic?  He uses the example of an expensive car to make the listener have a hard time showing empathy.  Is this person rich and entitled?  He then follows with two choices to view this: be mad and angry at the driver of the Hummer or give him the benefit of the doubt. What if the driver is having an emergency or did not mean to cut him off? Wallace says he chooses to give the driver the benefit of the doubt. When he chooses to think this way, he is choosing to find the positive view and this frees him because he can let it go. If not, he will drive himself crazy being annoyed with driver that cut him off in traffic, especially one driving such an expensive vehicle. He cannot choose to take these things personally and think that life is unfair. He must choose to care enough about these people to give them the benefit of the doubt and keep his own sanity. This Wallace concludes, will leave us with the ultimate feeling of satisfaction. 

But why should we choose to think differently like Wallace does?  In another example, he says, “most days if you are aware enough to give yourself a choice you can choose to look differently at this fat, dead-eyed, over-made up lady who just screamed at her kid in the checkout line.” Wallace describes the lady with imagery that makes us not like her, yet he then encourages us to not take the easy path and judge her.  This causes us to stretch and exercise our minds in order to choose to think differently of her. Sales people often give bad service. How we view their behavior will have a direct impact on how our day continues.  In order to live life, we must withdraw from the temptation to make the easy and unfulfilling choice of being annoyed. We should not accept how our brain is hard-wired and become closed-minded, but should choose to think differently. This is a freeing state of being. You don’t have to be immune to what you know, but realize that you have the power to look at it differently. Wallace would agree with this because he made the point that the woman probably isn’t always like this and it is about what you consider. He doesn’t want us to look at life with selective lenses (self -centeredness), but experience a more satisfying life in choosing to think differently and exercise empathy. Only then can we live our lives with meaning, instead of numbness and aggravation.

Our experiences shape who we are and how we think but also what matters to us; “It means being conscious and aware enough to choose what you pay attention to and to choose how you construct meaning from experience. If you cannot exercise this kind of choice in adult life, you will be a totally hosed.” (XIII) Wallace tells us that the way we really choose to be happy is by training ourselves through experiences and what we gained in knowledge from them. In this quote we are reminded we are conscious creatures of habit and our minds become numb and dead if we act out in instinct— “totally hosed”. To avoid this, we can take what we have experienced and consciously apply the lesson to our life. We have options.  Where we place our time, money, and effort reflects who we are and influences the experiences we will encounter. This in turn shapes the choices we make. We see Wallace’s stance on when he negatively talks about adults who cannot apply this to their lives. His tone and choice of the word “hosed” emphasizes his passion on the topic. He is giving you a warning that if you cannot accomplish thinking this way then you are setting yourself up for failure. You will not achieve peace in handling day to day conflict, and instead will become like the masses trying to cope.

After evaluating the evidence presented, I believe Wallace does an excellent job in arguing his concern about living a meaningful life through the word choice. You have to know who you are so you can grow in whatever you choose to do. Life is what you make it and choosing which way to picture the world around us is where you start. We must be conscious of this in order to stand for and believe the best in bad situations. If we choose to put our needs above all else, we will be like the people in his stories—sad and lost. We must make a choice to think beyond ourselves in the day to day routine of life. We must realize we have options and step back and see the beauty of each day. In doing so, we can have a meaningful life…before death.  This, Wallace tells us, is the real lesson.  We have been given an instinct to live as if we were the center of the universe. Choose to resist and remind yourself... this is water, enjoy it.